Bo Giertz
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The Rt Revd Bo Giertz |
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|---|---|
| Bishop of Gothenburg | |
Bishop Giertz in early 1950s
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| Church | Church of Sweden |
| Archdiocese | Archdiocese of Uppsala |
| Diocese | Diocese of Gothenburg |
| In office | 1949–1970 |
| Predecessor | Carl Block |
| Successor | Bertil Gärtner |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | 28 December 1934 |
| Consecration | 22 May 1949 by Erling Eidem |
| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Bo Harald Giertz |
| Born |
August 31, 1905 Räpplinge, Öland, Sweden |
| Died | July 12, 1998 (aged 92) Djursholm, Uppland, Sweden |
| Buried | Torpa, Östergötland, Sweden |
| Nationality | Swedish |
| Denomination | Lutheran |
| Parents | Knut Harald Giertz and Anna Ericsson |
| Spouse | (1) Ingrid Andrén (2) Elisabeth Heurlin (3) Karin Lindén |
| Children | Lars, Birgitta, Ingrid, Martin |
| Occupation | theologian, writer |
| Profession | clergy |
| Education | Ba.Th. |
| Alma mater | Uppsala University |
| Motto | Verbum crucis Dei virtus |
Bo Giertz (/bʊ yærts/, b. 31 August 1905 on Öland, d. 12 July 1998 in Djursholm) was a thrice-widowed Lutheran theologian, novelist and bishop of the Gothenburg Lutheran Diocese from 1949 to 1970. By the time he became bishop, he was already quite well known in Sweden and elsewhere both as an author and as a priest. He worked hard to promote western Swedish Pietism, an outlook that strongly resembled Neo-Lutheranism. Mostly it was a piety that took Scripture seriously, though not in a fundamentalist, literalist sense, and that centered Christian life on sacraments and prayer. Giertz's combination of pietist pastoral care with High Church Lutheran theology, which can also be noticed in his novels, gained for him a wide readership and made his novels as well as non-fiction books about Christian faith popular in Scandinavia. Giertz wrote more than 600 works but is known in the English-speaking world mostly for his book The Hammer of God.
Giertz was born in Räpplinge on Öland, an island off the east coast of Sweden. His father, Knut Harald Giertz, was a well-known doctor, the son of John Bernard and Augusta Giertz; for two years he taught surgery at Uppsala University. His mother, Anna Ericsson, was a daughter of Lars Magnus Ericsson, the founder of the Ericsson telephone company.
During his childhood his mother was agnostic and his father an atheist. Nevertheless, for the sake of tradition and custom, Giertz was baptized at 2 months of age shortly after his family moved to Uppsala. Giertz stated that his father eventually became Christian after attending the Sunday services that were obligatory in order for the teen-aged Bo and his siblings to be eligible for confirmation; although Giertz was now formally enrolled in the church, he remained an atheist, read widely from his father's library of atheist literature and argued with the priest in favour of evolutionary biology.
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